Suspension Systems

The purpose of the complete suspension system is to isolate the vehicle body from road
shocks and vibrations which would otherwise be transferred to the passengers and load. It
must also keep the tyres in contact with the road, regardless of road surface. A basic
suspension system consists of springs, axles, shock absorbers, arms, rods, and ball joints.
The spring is the flexible component of the suspension. Basic types are leaf springs, coil
springs, and torsion bars. Modern passenger vehicles usually use light coil springs. Light
commercial vehicles have heavier springs than passenger vehicles, and can have coil springs
at the front and leaf springs at the rear. Heavy commercial vehicles usually use leaf springs,
or air suspension.
Solid, or beam, axles connect the wheels on each side of the vehicle. This means the
movement of a wheel on one side of the vehicle is transferred to the wheel on the other side.
With independent suspension, the wheels can move independently of each other, which
reduce body movement. This prevents the other wheel being affected by movement of the
wheel on the opposite side, and this reduces body movement.
When a wheel strikes a bump, there is a reaction force, and energy is transferred to the
spring which makes it oscillate. Oscillations left uncontrolled can cause loss of traction
between the wheel and the road surface. Shock absorbers dampen spring oscillations by
forcing oil through small holes. The oil heats up, as it absorbs the energy of the motion. This
heat is then transferred through the body of the shock absorber to the air. When a vehicle
hits an obstruction, the size of the reaction force depends on how much
unsprung mass is at each wheel assembly.
Sprung mass refers to those parts of the vehicle supported on the springs. This includes the
body, the frame, the engine, and associated parts. Unsprung mass includes the wheels, tyres,
brake assemblies, and suspension parts not supported by the springs.
Vehicle ride and handling is improved by keeping unsprung mass as low as possible. Wheel
and brake units that are small and light follow the road contours without a large effect on the
rest of the vehicle.

Coil Springs
Coil springs are used on the front suspension of most modern light vehicles, and in many
cases, they have replaced leaf springs in the rear suspension. A coil spring is made from a
single length of special wire, which is heated and wound on a former, to produce the
required shape. The load-carrying ability of the spring depends on the diameter of the
wire, the overall diameter of the spring, its shape, and the spacing of the coils.

And this also decides which vehicle it is suitable for. A light commercial vehicle has springs
that are robust and fairly stiff. On a small passenger car, they are lighter, and more flexible.
The coils may be evenly spaced, or of uniform pitch, or unevenly spaced. The wire can be
the same thickness throughout, or it may taper towards the end of the spring.

Leaf Springs
The suspension system separates the axles from the vehicle chassis, so that any road
irregularities are not transmitted directly to the driver and
the load on the vehicle. This not only allows a more comfortable ride, and protection of the
load from possible damage, but it also helps to prevent distortion and damage to the chassis
frame.
On most heavy vehicles, suspension is by means of laminated leaf springs, but on some
special applications rubber or air may be used as the suspension medium. Passenger vehicles
often use some form of air suspension to give extra passenger comfort, but this is offset
by an increase in cost.

Helper spring
An ideal suspension system would not affect the ride of a vehicle irrespective of whether it
is fully laden or unladen. Unfortunately, because of the heavy loads carried by most heavy
vehicles, an ideal suspension system is impossible. Large stiff springs are required to support
the load and this gives a very harsh ride when the vehicle is unladen. Conversely if the
spring were too soft it would deflect too much or break when carrying a full load. The spring
rate is the amount of deflection of the spring for a given load.
If the spring could have a variable rate it would be possible to stiffen the spring when more
load was added and still give an acceptable ride when unladen. On vehicles fitted with
laminated leaf springs, this stiffening effect is achieved by fitting a helper spring above the
main spring. When lightly loaded the main spring carries the weight but as the load is
increased the helper spring contacts spring seats on the chassis and the suspension is
stiffened as both the helper and main springs now support the load.

Constant-rate and progressive-rate semielliptic

Springing
There are two basic methods of mounting a semi-elliptic spring to the chassis, as follows:

Constant-rate swing springs:

With this method, the forward end of the spring is directly pinned to the front springhanger
and the rear end to a swing shackle. When the spring is deflected between the unloaded and
the loaded position, the spring camber will be reduced and the spring length will increase. To
allow this to take place, the swing shackle will pivot about the upper fixed shackle-pin. The
driving thrust can then be transmitted through the forward half of the spring
directly to the fixed spring-hanger.
There will be very little change in the spring stiffness as the spring straightens out, hence this
is known as a constant-rate suspension spring.

Progressive-rate slipper spring:

With this method of supporting the spring ends, the forward end is attached directly to the
spring-hanger as before, but the rear end has no eye but just rests on a curved slipper block
or pad. Initially, when the spring is unloaded, the contact point will be on the outside
position of the slipper face, but the straightening of the spring as the load is increased will
roll the mainleaf end around the slipper profile from the outer to the inner position. This
effectively shortens the spring length. This is equivalent to stiffening the spring, or increasing
the spring rate, which will therefore offer a progressively increased resistance to the vehicle
payload.

Single trapezium-shaped leaf spring

Another approach to maintaining an approximately constant stress distribution along the
spring span is to have a single spring blade of uniform thickness but increasing in width
from its ends towards the mid span. A plan view shows a trapezium shape.
The increase in cross-sectional area towards the middle of the spring blade
counteracts the increase in bending moment created by the body weight, so
that the spring remains uniformly stressed along its length.

Single tapered leaf spring

A more popular approach using a single leaf spring is to have the blade of constant width
but to taper its thickness from a maximum in the mid-span position to a minimum at its
ends as shown With this shape, the increased bending moment from the spring ends of
the axle centre will be resisted by the proportionally enlarged cross-sectional area of the
blade. The taper leaf seems to be preferred to the trapezium shape as it is more compact and
easier to clamp on to the axle-beam.

Multi-taper-leaf springs
For heavy-duty large tractors or trucks, two or three taper-leaf springs may be used together.
Liners may be used between the pressure points at the mid spring seat position, so that the
springs do not touch at any point between the middle seat section and the load bearing
end points.
Advantages of taper-leaf over multi-leaf springs:
The advantages of taper-leaf over multi-leaf springs are as follows:
(a) The variable-cross-section single-leaf spring is only about half the weight of a multi-leaf
spring used for the same payload.
(b) There is no interleaf friction with the single taper blade. Where the taper-leaf application
has more than one leaf, inter-leaf friction is reduced because fewer leaves are required and
because these leaves bear upon each other only at the ends. This provides a more sensitive
springing for light road shocks and so gives a better ride.
(c) The taper-leaf spring stresses are more uniform and lower overall than with the multi-leaf
design. Taper-leaf spring life is therefore longer.
(d) With the single-taper-leaf spring, there is no inter-leaf collection of moisture and trapped
dirt which would promote fretting corrosion and fatigue failure.

Leaf-spring shackle arrangements

To obtain an efficient suspension, the vehicle weight must be transmitted to the leaf spring
by means of a fixed spring-mount or hanger at the front end of the spring and usually a
swinging shackle at the rear end. The spring is attached or hinged at each end by shacklepins passing through the spring eye and the mounting or shackle-plate. These pins provide a
joint which can rotate or pivot in rubber or metal bushes but at the same time be firmly held
together. This reduces wear and noise and does not alter the suspension and steering
geometry as the spring deflects and the various forces act on the system.
Rubber bushes are generally used for cars and vans, but metal phosphorbronze
bushes are provided on heavy-duty commercial vehicles. There are two
types of rubber bushing commonly used:

i)

flanged rubber half-bushes and (ii) silent block bushes

Metal bushes
For heavy-duty applications. metal bushes are used. These can either be plain or screw
profiled, and both types are a force fit in the spring eye or spring mounting hanger. Rubbing
between the shackle-pin and the metal bush must be minimised, so they are always
lubricated by holes drilled axially along the shackle pin. A radial intersecting hole in the
middle of the pin permits the passage of grease between the pin and the bush. Plain bushes
are usually helically internally grooved so that the grease will spread more evenly over the
bush bearing surface. With the screw-type pin-and-bush joint there will be both rotary and
axial movement when the spring is deflected, so the grease should readily spread over the
bearing-surface pair.

Suspension systems for tandem rear axles

On heavier goods vehicles, which use two axles at the rear because of the weight regulations,
the axles must be mounted as close together as possible in order to eliminate tyre scrub
when cornering. The wheels must try to follow a common turning point, but this is
impossible when two axles are used. Apart from this, both axles must be interconnected to
eliminate overloading of one axle when this goes
over a bump. Various forms of interconnecting linkage are used and some are more
effective than others in equalising the loading under all conditions.

The simplest form of interconnection in a double drive layout is a simple balance beam
(walking beam) which connects the rear swinging shackle of the forward spring to a swinging
shackle on the front of the rear spring. When the front axle negotiates a bump the balance
beam pivots at the centre and allows load equalisation on each axle to the limit of travel of
the beam. When accelerating, as mentioned previously, the spring is subjected to twisting. In
this particular layout, under these conditions, the forward spring will tend to move down at
the rear and the rear spring will tend to move up at the front owing to the torque reaction.
Both of these reactions will tend, through the balance beam, to have some load transference
under these accelerating conditions to the front of the two axles. This means that the
forward axle is temporarily subjected to more load than the rear axle which could lead to
possible wheel spin on the rear axle wheels under this condition. When braking, the torque
reaction acts in the opposite way with similar effects. This type of suspension is referred to
(reactive suspension)

Non-reactive suspension
Figure 1 a shows a typical non-reactive suspension system. When the forward axle moves
over a bump, the linkages equalize the loading with the rear axle. When accelerating, the
torque reaction in the forward spring tends to move the linkages as shown. At the same time
the torque reaction in the rear spring moves to oppose the movement by the forward spring,
therefore any transfer of load under this condition is balanced against each axle and no
movement takes place. Even if one axle were negotiating a bump at the same time the axle
loading would be balanced out. Torque reaction due to braking is balanced out in the
opposite direction to driving torque reaction under all conditions.

When a degree of movement between the axles in a tandem bogie layout is desirable vehicles
used on site work or vehicles which spend more of their driving time in off-road situations a
further type of suspension layout can be used. This can be either a single spring or a twin
spring layout with the springs mounted on trunnion bearings (Figure 2).

When using this layout, the springs can be laminated leaf, taper leaf or single leaf with
slipper-type mountings at both ends of the springs. This means that the driving thrust,
driving and braking torque reactions cannot be taken by the springs. Both axles are then held
by torque bars and Panhard rods which locate the axle to the chassis frame and take all other
torques usually taken by the springs. This layout also means that the springs can be designed
for suspension only and allows a greater difference in levels between the two axles. Both
systems are of course non-reactive layouts.

Torsion Bars
A torsion bar is a long, alloy-steel bar, fixed rigidly to the chassis or sub-frame, at one end,
and to the suspension control arm at the other. The bar is fitted to the control arm in the
unloaded condition, and as the control arm is raised, the bar twists around its centre, which
places it under a torsional load.

When the vehicle is placed on the road, with the control arm connected to the suspension
assembly, the bar supports the vehicle load, and twists around its centre, to provide the
springing action. Spring rate depends on the length of the bar, and its diameter. The shorter
and thicker the bar, the stiffer its spring rate.
Torsion bars can be used across the chassis frame on the same principle, in a trailing arm
suspension, or as part of the connecting link between 2 axle assemblies, on a semi-rigid axle
beam. After a lot of use, a torsion bar can sag.
On many vehicles, it can be adjusted to allow for this. It is used in light vehicles as a
stabilizer, or anti-roll bar, connected between each side of the suspension on the front, and
sometimes the rear.
When the vehicle is turning, centrifugal force acts on the body, and tends to make it lean
outwards. The anti-roll bar, or stabilizer, tries to use its connections to each side of the
suspension, to resist this roll tendency.

Rubber Springs

Rubber is used in most suspension systems as bump and rebound stops. If the suspension
reaches its limit of travel, these stops prevent direct metal-to-metal contact, which reduces
jarring of the body of the vehicle. The stops can also be shaped to provide an auxiliary
springing function, increasing their resistance progressively with suspension contact.